In recent years, with the development of technology, electronic products enable users to acquire needed information anytime in daily lives. On the other hand, since electronic devices gradually develops toward becoming thinner and smaller, demand for handheld electronic devices increases. The handheld devices are electronic products, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA), usually having a smaller volume and weight so that the users may carry around easily and hold and manipulate the handheld devices with hand. The handheld devices provide very high conveniences.
Take mobile phones for example. Earlier versions of mobile phones mostly take a stand-up design. To both enhance the carrying convenience of the mobile phones and maintain the dimensions of the screen and keyboard thereof, mobile phones gradually develop body designs with increased utilization dimensions, such as a collapsible design and a sliding-lid design.
In terms of the sliding-lid design, upper and lower bodies thereof are connected to each other through a sliding mechanism, so that the upper and lower bodies slide relatively to render different manipulation states, such as spreading and retracting states, while connecting the upper and lower bodies are connected to prevent from detachment due to sliding. Therefore, the upper and lower bodies have the smallest volume when retracted, and are spread in specific manipulation states to provide a larger utilization dimension.
However, among the prior art, the sliding mechanism of the sliding-lid design is arranged between the upper and lower bodies. Therefore, when the body is spread, the upper and lower bodies are partially overlapped, and part of the utilizable area of the lower body is covered by the upper body. Besides, in order to increase the diversity and convenience in manipulating handheld electronic devices, a rotating mechanism may be incorporated into the sliding-lid design, so that the upper and lower bodies are coupled to each other via a sliding mechanism and the rotating mechanism, in order to realize manual manipulations such as sliding relatively and rotating relatively. However, a mechanism combining sliding and pivoting functions usually has a larger volume and applies a larger restriction to the utilizable room of the handheld electronic devices, i.e. a larger overlapping area exists between the upper and lower bodies, and the position and size of the keyboard, the screen or other elements are restricted. In addition, an over-complicated mechanism design affects the reliability and yield rate of the handheld electronic devices and increases the manufacturing cost of the handheld electronic devices.